Adams Archibald's speech to First Nations
in 1871 at Lower Fort Garry explaining Treaty #1

Your Great Mother [Queen Victoria] wishes the good of all races under her sway. She wishes her red children to be happy and contented. She wishes them to live in comfort. She would like them to adopt the habits of whites, to till [farm] land and raise food.... Your great Mother, therefore, will lay aside for you 'lots' of land to be used by you and your children forever. She will not allow the white men to intrude upon these lots. She will make rules to keep them for you, so that as long as the sun shall shine, there shall be no Indian who has not a place that he can call his home, where he can go and pitch his camp, or if he chooses, build his house and till his land.

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